James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

The title of the painting is "Les Porteurs de Mauvaises Nouvelles," translated as “Bearers of Ill Tidings.” It has also been called ""The Slaying of the Unpropitious Messengers."

The scene is set in Egypt at night. It is based on an episode from Le Roman de la momie by Théophile Gautier. A 1908 gallery guide from the Musée du Luxembourg describes the scene this way: "This Pharoah, defiant of fate, has slain the messengers of misfortune; his autocratic mind cannot acknowledge failure of his plans. His hopes are all fixed on the distant horizon towards which he looks so intently."

I wonder if the original is lost or in a private collection, because it doesn't seem to show up on the internet in anything but old reproductions.

I deleted my earlier comment on this, because it sounded a bit too snipey.

I generally like and admire Frazetta. I am surprised, though, that his appropriation was so direct. It is, in my mind, a bit of a different situation (i.e. less of an issue), than if this figure had been the primary figure, or a more prominant part of the composition.

Torb,"Quoting" a single figure was a perfectly acceptable practice of the classical tradition that Lecomte was a part of, provided it was part of an original "invention" and "disposition", as clearly it was in this case (i.e the overall compositions are very different). I think it's safe to assume Lecomte would be flattered.

I think "etc, etc" found it. Here is link to the article in english, towards the bottom of the page:

http://www.thearttribune.com/France-s-hidden-museum.html

It says:

"This painting, long thought to have disappeared (and noted as such in Roger Diederen’s study on Lecomte de Nouÿ – see article in French) is in fact still held at the Tunisian Ministry of Cultural Affairs."

I'm not sure why people are surprised by Frazetta's "inspired" approach. He reproduced and in many cases improved interpretations of Burroughs passages illustrated by J.Allen St. John and Roy Krenkel himself.

I think it speaks more to our desire to believe genius comes from within. That it can be pure but that's really impossible. We are the sum of our experiences.

He's as fallible as anyone else, but he did wonderful stuff to make us believe different.

As you probably remember too, Shane, Frank was pretty touchy about this sort of thing. I would never have brought it up with him, having discovered it, but I never thought any less of him for it. Now that he is gone, I figure he can't get mad at me for showing people... :)

The painting used to hang in the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, when the Luxembourg existed as a separate museum with a permanent collection. Author Julien Green writes about it in volume 1 of his autobiography ("Green Paradise"; first published in French as "Partir avant le jour" in 1963). The painting made a huge impression on him.

Etc, Bill, Lyon, and J.R. -- Thanks for tracking it down the Lecomte. My interest in its whereabouts is only idle curiosity (and also I'd love to see a better reproduction of it). Maybe a scholar or someone preparing an art book will pick up the thread you've given here.

The article says the painting is "linked to the history of decolonization", so I'd bet there is some political machinations and stonewalling involved, and that explains the dearth of recent images. Looks like the Tunisians may have learned a thing or two from the French about art acquisition...sacre bleu!

Thanks for another remarkable post. Lecomte's painting has haunted me ever since I encountered it in Henry Rankin Poore's book on pictorial composition, where the name of the painting's creator is not mentioned. Frazetta's painting was hanging recently at the Society of Illustrators, side-by-side with a photo of the painting in its original state. As was his habit, he re-worked and improved it, years after it had served its original function as a piece of cover art.

Frazetta has always been one of my favorites and no less now. This is one of his best paintings.I don't see it any different than a singer or band doing the occasional cover song. Their work still stands as their own.Inspiration can come from many sources.

Huh, Andrea, it isn't: "Lieu de conservation:ministère des Affaires culturelles, Tunis, Tunisie" The Lecomte is still in Tunis! It never came back ...Read this: http://www.latribunedelart.com/le-musee-cache-de-la-republique-article002100.html

here is a *better* pic: http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat-collection.html?no_cache=1&zoom=1&tx_damzoom_pi1%5Bzoom%5D=0&tx_damzoom_pi1%5BxmlId%5D=078173&tx_damzoom_pi1%5Bback%5D=en%2Fcollections%2Findex-of-works%2Fresultat-collection.html%3Fno_cache%3D1%26zsz%3D9

Frazetta would probably say he did it subconsciously. He claimed he never swiped except if he did it as a homage or something. It could be one of few exceptions but everyone has a different kind of memory and he probably had more of a photographic type. People have noticed other instances of almost perfect copies he's done of other works which he really wouldn't need to do if you think about it. He could have easily changed the angle if he were swiping.

It's a horrible pain to find an image at the angle I need for a given picture. Art students are almost always encouraged to draw from life or reference since really makes the artwork much more beautiful. However when you draw from imagination it helps unify the picture since it's easy to leave out of the picture what you haven't thought of.

Frank swiped a lot and hated to admit it. He used the "I have a photographic memory" line to cover his getting caught.I live by the Wally Wood quote: “Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.”Other than as a footnote it shouldn't be an issue.Frankly I prefer his "swipes" than to his Battlestar Galactica period when his paintings looked like a weak imitation of his earlier work. He didn't like that period much either...